Monday, 3 August 2015

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: In the afternoon we decided to go straight to the location where we spotted an humpback whale last. While traveling out of the bay we had a quick encounter with a minke whale swimming towards Reykjavik as well as jumping dolphins a bit further away. We kept going anyway, and as it turned out, it was a good decision as we didn't just find one humpback whale, we found two. The first one was an animal that was tangled up in a fishing net. As a coast guard boat and some of our rip boats approached the humpback whale to try and cut it free, we left the area to spot other individuals to give them space and reduce the stress- level of the  animal. During the rest of our tour we enjoyed watching the second humpback whale as it was showing very interesting behaviour like tail slapping. This animals was also accompanied by a pod of dolphins jumping over it and swimming under it, very amazing to watch. We even managed to spot several more animal on the way back to Reykjavik, pods of white- beaked dolphins as well as a minke whales. Estimating 3-4 minke whales and 2-3 pods of white- beaked dolphins with around 8-12 individuals.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding. The day just got even better. The wind had calmed down to almost nothing and the humpback whale (a different individual from the 10 o´clock tour) was also superb, surface feeding, showing his/her fluke many times and again came close to the boat. At one point it surfaced so close and so suddenly it scared us. I was guiding at the time and can´t remember what came out of my mouth during this time. Those sneaky whales!. The bird life, like this morning, was also incredible and the massive dark shadows of the shoals of fish below. One the way home we slowed down to see a minke whale but it was not in a whale watching mood and only the guide saw it once a few hundred meters away. Awesome day to be out at sea watching whales. Hope you all join us for the next adventure.

-Megan Whittaker

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: A cold northern wind blew when we headed out in Faxaflói. The birdlife in the bay is still amazing with thousands of birds feeding on the fish. After 50 minutes of sailing a pod of 5-6 white-beaked dolphins were feeding in front of us. The dolphins looked busy so we didn´t spent so much time with them. Instead we headed on, in search for a humpback whale. It turned out that it was 3 humpback whales in the bay this afternoon. We chose the one furthest out in the bay since it was closest to us. Good choice! The whale (our regular, Charlie) was amazing, breaching and tail-slapping in-between deeper dives. You simply can´t ask for more. On our way back we passed by the other humpbacks and it is truly a privilege with all these humpbacks in the bay, the time to join us for whale watching is now!

- Marcus Bergström   

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding. A beautiful day on a whale watching tour, sun was out but the sea was choppy and the wind quite chilly that a few of our passengers made use of the free overalls (floatation suits) we offer onboard. After about 40 minutes of sailing we got a call from another boat about a humpback whale. Taking us 20 minutes to reach the area, we waited for the other whale watching boats until they were finished as they had less time than us and its not respectful to have too many boats around the whale at once. Whilst we were waiting we saw another humpback whale in the distance in front of us. We were slowly traveling when it surfaced just metes from the boat. We didn´t have to leave this whale as it just did what humpback whales do best, feed, travel, sleep. At one point I looked down and saw the head rising above the depths. It was however, never showing it´s fluke as it went down and when everyone had given up and lowered their camera´s, a high incredible tail (fluke) as it dove.  Keeping this whale company for a while was a pair of white-beaked dolphins. You just needed to watch the birds and dolphins to know where the whale will surface next. We gave the humpback a round of applause before leaving for home. 

- Megan Whittaker

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: On this sunny morning we were heading out west to search for cetaceans. Only a short ride later we saw our fist marine mammal, a minke whale. We traveled towards where we saw it last, but unfortunately it seemed to have vanished as fast as it appeared. We kept on going, trying to spot other minke whales we saw in the distance, but again without any luck, most of them where behaving very elusive and surfaced rarely. This is why we decided to look for other animals, so we traveled further out into the area where we saw a humpback whale the day before. Indeed we found a humpback whale, which we stayed with as long as we could until we had to head back to the harbour. Estimating around 3 minke whales.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Birds seen on todays tour include: kittiwakes, puffins, arctic terns, northern fulmars, northern gannets, common guillemots, razorbills, black-backed gulls, black-headed gull, cormorants, eider ducks, arctic skuas and manx shearwaters.